Powerplay SNIPING in Powerplay

[Arsen Cross]

Another thought in addendum to my post: Why not explore the idea of only showing complete undermining progress for your own faction? Basically, make it so that LYR supporters are the only ones that can see the total values of all of our undermined systems, as we'd be the ones with the data reported to us.

Other factions at this point would only be able to see the undermining effect that their own faction has had an another faction. This would enable espionage as a profession, and eliminate "uber teamwork" from occurring easily cross-faction.

Food for thought.

 

[yul7896]

Another thought in addendum to my post: Why not explore the idea of only showing complete undermining progress for your own faction? Basically, make it so that LYR supporters are the only ones that can see the total values of all of our undermined systems, as we'd be the ones with the data reported to us.

Other factions at this point would only be able to see the undermining effect that their own faction has had an another faction. This would enable espionage as a profession, and eliminate "uber teamwork" from occurring easily cross-faction.

Food for thought.

And result in more fifth columning, which is the worst problem in the game right now, in my opinion.

 

[Quineloe]

Because then you'll end up with really odd situations where the undermining for a particular systems suddenly takes a massive dip, because a wing was destroyed while carrying a several thousand merits worth of undermining for the system.

Or a different kind of sniping - you undermine all of a power's systems. Now they fortify everything, but you don't turn in any of your merits. The power now ends up with a massive CC surplus, and they are unable to effectively control which systems they end up preparing, which can be even more damaging than being put into turmoil for a single cycle.

The idea obviously is to disconnect merits and undermining completely. As said before, we're not talking Vampirism here. The destroyed ships don't come back to life because you destroyed their killer. The power should still be hurt in that system from losing dozens of ships.

 

[Nick S]

Thank you Aidan, for bringing Sandro's comments into one place.

He seems to be thinking along these lines:-
1. CMDRs should be able to see a growing undermining threat.
A. Why? Powers with many player resources would be able to respond quickly and easily. Powers with fewer player resources would struggle. End result - big Powers will overwhelm small Powers. No strategic thinking, planning, co-ordination or action would be effective against high player numbers. PowerPlay dumbs down to a superficial numbers game.
2. FD should limit the effectiveness of sniping.
A. Why? Powers that do not fear unforeseen attacks would become complacent and just grow at will. There would be no need to plan - play would be entirely reactive.
3. Large Powers have large overheads and are therefore vulnerable.
A. And the problem is? Of course large Powers that have made injudicious expansions should suffer all the problems that go along with that. They should not be feather-bedded if getting so big was due to complacency, poor system or poor player management.
4. FD should address player concerns about unfairness
The time to address rule changes was at the launch. Any rule change at this stage is likely to have unforeseen consequences. Rule changes should only be considered if things are going badly wrong. One large Power in turmoil is hardly in that category.

 

[Arsen Cross]

And result in more fifth columning, which is the worst problem in the game right now, in my opinion.

While you have a point that I agree with, I picture the outcome of my 2 changes to be a bit different than you do.

Firstly, by making all undermining effects instantly take affect, the defending faction has the ability to adjust to opposition in real time. Something I feel is extremely warranted given the drastic imbalance between undermining and fortification time and credit costs when compared to their respective effects.

Second, if you only show each faction the data relevant to their undermining of a system you can eliminate what I currently see as a problem: No matter which faction undermines a system, the effect isn't just measured across all factions contributions; but all factions can see that progress at a glance. This means that Faction A may suddenly see a population of people move to undermine faction B, simply because faction C had a significant amount of opposition to faction B.

By updating the UI only to show progress made for undermining by your faction; we could drastically eliminate the effect of 5th columners affecting the decisions of others so easily. Allowing a faction to see its own undermining states in real time not only makes sense with the technology implied by Elites background, but it's the only actual way to eliminate sniping without creating other balancing concerns.

Yes, espionage would be a thing. It should be a thing. We just need a more realistic flow of information. If we neuter the ability for 5th columners to snipe we have made progress. We make information distribution more natural, we will improve things.

Fifth column activity within a faction isn't something that I see as fixable simply due to the fact that it's impossible to forcibly deny another player access to do what they want thanks to solo/group modes. All major internal "fifth column" activity I've been witness to in my faction occurred with me actively trying to prevent the activity in open, and simply being forced to watching the numbers increase at rates only possible with groups of organized players.

The fact of the matter is, with perfect stealth (group/solo), fifth column activity will always be there simply because you will never be able to see those committing the unwanted activity. Our only choices here are to make intelligent changes that help prevent the masses across all the factions from following the behavior of only one other, possibly hostile faction and eliminate the possibility of undermining sniping completely.

 

[rckstr]

I'd like to add my opinion about it too.
If the majority sees sniping as an issue then there should be changes, smart changes. I think not knowing exactly which system might be in danger is a cool thing and adds a lot to the flavor. Without this strategic planning would be redundant.

Limiting the amount of vouchers a cmdr can carry is not a smart change in my eyes.

Also first of all the technical issues should be solved beforehand. Trigger values don't update for many people even though a bigger change was made. This should be addressed first.

Limiting the amount of vouchers a cmdr can carry will increase the amount of travel time exponentially. There are powers that have their control systems and possible systems for undermining at a distance of 150+Ly.

• What a capped amount of vouchers will create will be again a more massive over-undermining of systems in close range.

• It will make smart fortification plans almost completely redundant.

• Certain powers will become almost invulnerable to "attacks" from different powers because of the distance.

• Powers with a larger will be in an advantage against smaller powers because they still have the manpower to cover a lot of merits though there is a cap. Obviously Powers with a smaller playerbase will be put in a big disadvantage in terms of effectively undermining.

• Like in the past people might get mad again about the "grind" that is involved into PP.

At the moment those players that are trying to snipe also carry the risk that a certain amount of their merits is "useless" because they would increase the trigger to more than 100%
Also there have been talks floating around of putting systems into turmoil with a massive amount of undermining. If this idea still exists then it will be redundant with a merit cap.

My suggestions are

• Solve the issues with trigger values not updating correctly.
• Add a "force update" system that updates trigger values ever 5% or 10%. Maybe add a timer that updates the values every 2-5 hours.
• If you limit the amount of vouchers don't limit them to a lower amount than 1000 or even 1500 and this only per system. Once you hit your limit you'll get a notification and jump to the next system. This will limit the amount of merits on certain targets but won't increase the travel time too much and people still don't have to worry about loosing precious time.

Other idea is to remove the weekly reset to 0% of undermining and fortification. (This idea includes forced some kind of turmoil through massive undermining)

• Limit the Values at 120% for fortification and 160% for undermining. People undermining in a system close to the limit will get a warning.
• At the end of a cycle instead of resetting the values to 0% a decay kicks in. Depending on the "strong/weak against ethos" and the difference between reached fortification/undermining values of the previous cycle, 20-50% of fortification/undermining will be carried over.
• Combat merits handed in that would increase the value to more than 160% will be paid in credits, 1 merit equals 10000 credits.This will happen only once per cycle.
  • If you have received credits instead of merits for a system you will be unable to get rewarded in the same system again for this cycle
• Instead of paying credits for merits directly transfer the amount of "too much" merits into free supplies needed for fortification. The Amount achievable through this will be capped at 3500 merits per cycle.
  • This should encourage people to help fortifying instead of just grinding merits until rank X.

Also it would balance things a bit out if you rename rank 5 to rank 6 and add a new rank 5. The Bonus is the same but you'll receive about 20mil credits for about 5000 merits. This should encourage more people to have a reason to go past rank 4 without the huge gap to current rank 5.

 

[Martin Schou]

At the end of a cycle instead of resetting the values to 0% a decay kicks in. Depending on the "strong/weak against ethos" and the difference between reached fortification/undermining values of the previous cycle, 20-50% of fortification/undermining will be carried over.

That is a very bad idea. Just to give you an idea of HOW bad, during cycle 14 Mahon was hit with 1.34 million merits worth of undermining. During cycles 10 through 13 combined, Arissa was hit with 1.31 million merits worth of undermining and Aisling was hit with less than 700k. Carrying over any kind of fortifications or undermining will simply skew powerplay even more in favour of the Empire, and in particular Arissa and Aisling. Don't take my word for it - go through Cadoc's cycle analysis for the weeks and see for yourself.

The Empire is already the least undermined powers, pretty much always occupying four out of the bottom five when ranked by undermining merits received, because it is close to impossible for Imperial powers to undermine each other.

 

[chagnampra]

Limiting the amount of vouchers a cmdr can carry will increase the amount of travel time exponentially. There are powers that have their control systems and possible systems for undermining at a distance of 150+Ly

I have been undermining recently around 180ly from home and I simply use a Diamondback, which is my taxi between my Vulture (bought and stored locally to the undermining location) and my home system where I cash in the vouchers. Even buying a Hauler or Adder might suffice. Don't get me wrong, I never suggested the voucher cap should be as low as 500-1000. I originally suggested 3000, but perhaps a compromise would be 2000. Either way, I don't see how traveling a few light years using an alternative long distance ship from time to time is such a hardship, especially when fortifying involves FAR more travelling as a whole.

 

[Kroy]

fortifying involves FAR more travelling as a whole.

So rather than suggest how to make fortifying more interesting, you think that bringing down undermining to the same level is ok?

For fortification, how about using an eve-online like drip that, if you've landed your ship in the home station of your power, you can toggle a supply that ticks at [tonnes/rating which will fill up your hold in [time/rating] and so when you log-in after a day's work you at least have a hold full of fortification to deliver somewhere.

Or for fortification, let players siphon off >100% tonnage to take somewhere else. That would shorten the journey, and give the grinders something valuable to add.

Or for fortification, add a number of vouchers per rating that can be immediately cashed in for a supply of fort packages.

Fortification needs a buff, don't nerf undermining.

 

[Apos]

Well, since we have the attention of Sandro and the topic started involving fortifications:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=182298

 

[rckstr]

That is a very bad idea. Just to give you an idea of HOW bad, during cycle 14 Mahon was hit with 1.34 million merits worth of undermining. During cycles 10 through 13 combined, Arissa was hit with 1.31 million merits worth of undermining and Aisling was hit with less than 700k. Carrying over any kind of fortifications or undermining will simply skew powerplay even more in favour of the Empire, and in particular Arissa and Aisling. Don't take my word for it - go through Cadoc's cycle analysis for the weeks and see for yourself.

The Empire is already the least undermined powers, pretty much always occupying four out of the bottom five when ranked by undermining merits received, because it is close to impossible for Imperial powers to undermine each other.

How many %value resulted with the amount of merits handed in? As you may have noticed i suggested a maximum cap for fortifying and undermining. I also had this idea with the some weeks ago mentioned mechanic to put a system into turmoil with a massive amount of undermining which was suggested by the devs. My idea would not put a specific system into turmoil but it creates a similar mechanic to keep on hammering on the most expensive systems which in turn have to be fortified. Also it would lessen the sniping.

 

[rckstr]

I have been undermining recently around 180ly from home and I simply use a Diamondback, which is my taxi between my Vulture (bought and stored locally to the undermining location) and my home system where I cash in the vouchers. Even buying a Hauler or Adder might suffice. Don't get me wrong, I never suggested the voucher cap should be as low as 500-1000. I originally suggested 3000, but perhaps a compromise would be 2000. Either way, I don't see how traveling a few light years using an alternative long distance ship from time to time is such a hardship, especially when fortifying involves FAR more travelling as a whole.

Too liming for me at least. I am hostile to every imperial faction. So where should i park my ship then?

 

[Kowboat]

Well, since we have the attention of Sandro and the topic started involving fortifications:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=182298

I've submitted my own alternate proposal as well:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=182712

 

[Trafalgar Law]

Too liming for me at least. I am hostile to every imperial faction. So where should i park my ship then?

Anywhere you like. The stations won't attack you nor will regular security.

 

[chagnampra]

Too liming for me at least. I am hostile to every imperial faction. So where should i park my ship then?

Any fringe system to the Empire, I guess, like a Federation system or an Independent system? Anyway, being in hostile territory doesn't mean you can't use a local station for storage purposes (unless you are wanted, of course).

 

[Apos]

Any fringe system to the Empire, I guess, like a Federation system or an Independent system? Anyway, being in hostile territory doesn't mean you can't use a local station for storage purposes (unless you are wanted, of course).

Actually, being hostile in terms of reputation means revocation of docking rights and instant aggression upon just being targeted, not even scanned. Assuming the faction is the one controlling the station.

 

[Soopyyy]

Actually, being hostile in terms of reputation means revocation of docking rights and instant aggression upon just being targeted, not even scanned. Assuming the faction is the one controlling the station.

No it doesn't. You can land at a station that has marked you as hostile, hell you can even do it when wanted so long as you don't get scanned. I do it every single day.

 

[Apos]

No it doesn't. You can land at a station that has marked you as hostile, hell you can even do it when wanted so long as you don't get scanned. I do it every single day.

There's a difference between marked as hostile due to invading the space of another power and actually being hostile with a faction that controls a station because you have been spreading mayhem in their system too often, too much.

 

[Trafalgar Law]

There's a difference between marked as hostile due to invading the space of another power and actually being hostile with a faction that controls a station because you have been spreading mayhem in their system too often, too much.

You're correct the difference is it'll say wanted instead of hostile. In which case park your ship somewhere you haven't been undermining i.e. not a control system.

 

[Soopyyy]

You're correct the difference is it'll say wanted instead of hostile. In which case park your ship somewhere you haven't been undermining i.e. not a control system.

I am hostile in that I am part of a hostile faction and because the Empire hates me. Can still land. I can still land when Wanted too, I just have to be quick about it.